


Outfoxing Fate

by leveragehunters (Monkeygreen)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Animal Transformation, Canon Divergence - Captain America: The First Avenger, Happy Ending, Inspired by Art, M/M, Magical Realism, Minor Original Character(s), Mythical Beings & Creatures, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 08:05:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13876677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monkeygreen/pseuds/leveragehunters
Summary: Bucky falls, he always falls, Steve can’t save him, but before the enemy can find him, something else finds him first.





	Outfoxing Fate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [littleblackfox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleblackfox/gifts).



> This grew entirely out of a piece of (not fanart) art I saw on Tumblr. I would definitely suggest looking at it before you read this (and if you have a Tumblr, giving the artist a reblog?): [The Fox and the Ghost](https://radiantboy.tumblr.com/post/155442539472/the-fox-and-the-ghost).
> 
> For littleblackfox because, well, it kind of has to be, doesn't it? :)

The mountains were deep and white and cold. Who really knew what lived there? It wasn't something Steve or Bucky gave any thought to when they threw themselves off a mountain and onto a speeding train.

It wasn't something they gave any thought to while they fought.

And it wasn't something they gave any thought to as Bucky fell.

Because of course he fell. Steve couldn't save him. Fate had set their path and all they could do was walk it.

The enemy was coming, even if Bucky was too far gone to know it, but before they could reach him, before the enemy even knew that their feet had started walking fate's path, _something else_ found him. Not a friend, precisely, but certainly not an enemy.

Lying in the snow in the heart of the cold white mountains, _winter_ found him.

Not Winter, Winter had no time to spare for frail mortals bleeding out in Her snow, but winter, a lesser spirit of the cold and ice, who was not at all pleased at this careless human getting red all over the glorious, pristine snow.

Bucky was dying.

He knew he was dying. His left arm was gone, he was bleeding out. All he could see was Steve’s outstretched hand as he slipped past. He was dying, and that meant she must be an angel—pale skin, pale hair, pale everything, obviously not human and he was _dying._

If she was an angel, maybe he'd been good enough after all.

As she leaned over him he managed to force, “Have you come to take me home?” past his frozen lips.

After a long moment, the space between snowfalls, she said, "I suppose so," pursing her lips in irritation, and wrapped one frozen hand around his face, half-smothering him; winter didn't need to breathe, and it didn't occur to her that humans did.

Her grip was icy, but Bucky was past noticing, because his whole world was _pain_ one moment and _peace_ the next as the pain fled like it'd never been.

She hauled him to his feet—by his face, because it’s what she was hanging onto.

"What the hell, lady, get your damn hands off me," he yelled, trying to shove her away, and stumbled back, falling on his ass in the snow.

Staring.

At his hands.

Both of them.

His jacket was soaked in blood, like his left arm had been ripped right off, but there it was, hanging off his shoulder: bone, muscle, skin, sleeve.

He stared up at her and she turned away, walking above the snow.

“Wait,” he called after her and, “Where are you going?”

“I said I’d take you home.”

Bucky had no idea what was going on, but that’d been true since the moment he signed his enlistment papers, and it’d only gotten worse since the day Zola strapped him to a table and Steve had shown up extra-giant sized to save him, so he shook his head, hauled himself up, and slogged after her through the knee-deep snow.

He couldn't keep up.

Bucky was exhausted: from blood loss, from adrenaline, from near death, from plummeting hundreds of feet from a racing train.

He fell farther and farther behind.

He was on his knees, trying to crawl panting after her, when she stopped, turned, and asked, “Do you truly want to go home?”

He knew there was more to the question than that, when he didn't even know what she meant by home—Brooklyn? Some army base? The closest Allied camp?—but wherever it was, he wanted to go there.

Bucky nodded.

She pointed at him and he twisted and shrunk, whining low in his throat, and where Bucky the man had been there was now a fox. Bright red, with white markings and deep black feet.

He was still wearing his blue coat, his brown pants, his belt, because winter had never quite understood that human clothes weren't actually part of them. They fit his new fox shape perfectly, and his new fox shape—he leapt lightly to the top of the packed snow and yawned, then bounded forward to run past her—his new fox shape suited him just fine.

And he didn't mind the clothes, even if they pinched his fur a little, because he really didn't want his balls hanging out in the air. Bucky didn't know what this…being was, but whatever she was she _looked_ like a woman and his Ma had raised a gentleman.

Now that he could move freely, could leap across the top of the snow, they covered the ground startlingly fast, running joyfully together. Winter's laugh was the patter of hail on window-glass and she moved unerringly, following a compass needle only she could read.

Bucky didn't question.

He did wonder why no one saw them when they slipped through Allied lines, but he didn't question.

He caught Steve's scent before he saw him and put on a burst of speed, pausing just long enough to make sure Steve was alone in his tent before digging at the crappy wooden door—taking a moment to give Steve shit in his head that he rated a door.

Steve opened it, frowning in confusion, and Bucky's heart hurt at the new lines on his face, at the darkness lurking in the backs of his eyes. He launched himself up, Steve caught him automatically, and Bucky frantically licked his cheek, his neck, the only way he had to say, _I'm here, Steve, it's me._

The door slammed shut behind them, blown by a chilly errant breeze, Steve stumbled back, arms full of wiggling fox, and fell on his ass.

Steve lifted him, holding him at arms-length, and Bucky went limp while Steve stared at him, taking in his blue jacket, his belt, his brown pants, the same thing he'd been wearing when he'd slipped past Steve and fell away into swirling white.

Disbelief, anger, hope, they waged a war on Steve's face, and Bucky whined once, staring into Steve’s eyes, willing him to _see_. Steve freed one hand that trembled slightly as he gently touched the golden wings on his left shoulder, and Bucky saw it.

Steve knew.

He _knew_.

“Bucky?”

And in that moment, winter set him free.

He slammed down onto Steve with an ungraceful _Oof,_ and, not willing to risk missing out, not willing to take the chance, he caught Steve’s face between his hands and kissed the living daylights out of him.

When they finally came up for air, which took two and three and then four tries, since Steve kept pulling him back down for more, all Steve said, in a voice of pure wonder, was, “You came back to me.”

Bucky couldn't speak past the lump in his throat, so he went back to kissing him. He'd always been shit at words, anyway.  

 

* * *

 

Later, much later, they lay together in the wreckage of the Valkyrie and, sacrifices made, duty done, they curled close and waited for the ice to take them.

And waited.

And waited.

And kept waiting, but by then their injuries had mostly healed.

A series of clanking, clanging, banging noises drew them to their feet.

Winter shoved aside a twisted piece of metal and shot a look of irritation at Bucky.

“Sorry.” He lifted his hands in supplication while Steve stared. “Sorry! We were saving the world.”

She frowned, sniffed, then smiled. “All right, then. You’d both better come with me.”

“Bucky?” Steve asked.

“She led me back to you, after I fell. We can trust her.” He paused. “Sort of.”

They followed her out of the Valkyrie and out of the ocean and onto a flat plane of ice that stretched to the horizon in all directions.

“Do you want me to lead you home again?” she asked Bucky, whose ears turned pink when Steve gave him a curious look.

“What do you think?” he asked Steve.

Steve stared into the distance. “They think we’re dead.”

“Probably.”

“So we could just…not go back.”

For a moment, Bucky was surprised, then suddenly he wasn’t. He was fiercely glad. Fiercely happy. “Definitely.”

“Where can you take us?” Steve asked.

“I can take you anywhere they have winter. Seeing as you saved the world,” winter shot Bucky a dubious look, but he nodded vigorously, “I even will.”

 

* * *

 

Captain America and Bucky Barnes were never found in the wreckage of the Valkyrie, but their legend lived on.

Not the legend of World War Two, the Star-Spangled Man with a Plan and his sniper sidekick.

This was a different legend.

This was a legend of two men who appeared when you truly needed them. When there was no hope left. Two men who’d appear in a swirl of ice and snow and mete out righteous wrath like didn't exist in the world anymore.

Everyone knew it wasn’t real. The stories were just legends. But as long as there were legends there was hope.

 


End file.
